Manufacturing system performance analysis tool software architecture

A method for analyzing performance of a manufacturing system, the method comprising:

• providing user class objects defined by a user at an end-user application program to a software isolation layer, each user class object specifying an underlying desired analysis capability to be effected at an analytical module that is decoupled from the end-user program;
• for each user class object provided by the software isolation layer, generating a corresponding class internal object allocated within the software isolation layer;
• constructing a descriptive representation of the manufacturing system;
• selectively binding the descriptive representation to the analytical module using an analysis module interface provided by the software isolation layer;
• invoking a plurality of analytical sub-modules of the analytical module each bound to corresponding ones of the class internal objects, each analytical sub-module effecting the underlying desired analysis capability specified by the user class object through the bound corresponding class internal object;
• and
• utilizing outputs of the analytical sub-modules using the end-user application program configured to utilize the outputs.